Method, apparatus and system for information transmission

ABSTRACT

A method, an apparatus and a system for information transmission are provided. The method includes the following steps. A second user equipment receives update information issued by a wireless access point (AP). The second user equipment is located within a coverage area of the wireless AP. After detecting that the second user equipment has the update information, a first user equipment establishes a connection with the second user equipment and obtains the update information from the second user equipment. A wireless AP of the first user equipment is located outside the coverage area of the wireless AP. In the present invention, the user equipment can update the information without additionally increasing the transmit powers of the wireless AP and the user equipment when located outside the coverage area of the wireless AP, and thus the interference to other equipments is not increased.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/359,028, filed on Jan. 23, 2009, which is a continuation ofInternational Patent Application No. PCT/CN2007/070352, filed on Jul.25, 2007. The International Patent Application claims priority toChinese Patent Application No. 200610061810.3, filed on Jul. 25, 2006.The afore-mentioned patent applications are hereby incorporated byreference in their entireties.

FIELD

The present invention relates to the field of short-distancecommunication technology, and more particularly to a method, anapparatus and a system for information transmission.

BACKGROUND

Technologies such as 802.11/Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ad hoc network, and meshnetwork play an important role in the wireless local area network (WLAN)communication. As compared with a cellular mobile communication network,a WLAN has a small coverage area, a low power consumption and a hightransmission rate, and usually adopts a star or mesh topology. Awireless access point (AP) is connected to a backbone network as anetwork center, and a user equipment obtains resources from a wirelessAP to which it belongs as an access equipment.

The wireless AP is responsible for managing a mobile user equipment,storing and forwarding information, and coordinating communication withthe backbone network, and also undertakes a task of issuing information,i.e., issuing information to the user equipment in time when the userequipment is located in a coverage area of the wireless AP. Theinformation issuing service does not need to be strictly real-time (forexample, a non-voice service), but requires the information of the userequipment to be updated as quickly as possible.

Since the coverage area of the wireless AP is limited, a user equipmentoutside the coverage area of the wireless AP cannot obtain the issuedupdate information. To solve this problem, in a first applicabletechnical solution as shown in FIG. 1, the user equipment must be closeenough to the AP, that is, a user equipment 15 moves towards a wirelessAP 10. In a second applicable technical solution, the transmit power ofthe wireless AP and the user equipment is increased to enlarge thesignal propagation distance. As shown in FIG. 2, a wireless AP has anoriginal coverage area 201, and has a coverage area 202 after thetransmit power is increased, and meanwhile the transmit powers of userequipments within the coverage area also need to be increased. However,the above technical solutions both increase the signal interferenceamong the user equipments, resulting in a degradation in communicationquality.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, the present embodiment is directed to a method, anapparatus and a system for information transmission, so as to enable auser equipment outside a coverage area of a wireless access point (AP)to obtain update information in time.

An information transmission method is provided, which includes thefollowing steps: detecting, by a second user equipment, that whetherinformation of a first user equipment is out of date or not;establishing, by the second user equipment, a temporary connection withthe first user equipment, when the information of the first userequipment is out of date; and sending, by the second user equipment,update information to the first user equipment through the temporaryconnection; wherein the first and second user equipments are wirelesscommunication devices.

A user equipment is provided, the user equipment is a second wirelesscommunication device and includes: a first detecting unit, configured todetect whether information of a first wireless communication device isout of date or not; a first connection establishing unit, configured toestablish a temporary connection with the first wireless communicationdevice, when the information of the first wireless communication deviceis out of date; and a wireless transceiver unit, configured to sendupdate information to the first wireless communication device throughthe temporary connection.

An information transmission system is provided, and the informationtransmission system includes a first user equipment and a second userequipment. The first and second user equipments are wirelesscommunication devices and the second user equipment includes: a firstdetecting unit, configured to detect whether information of the firstuser equipment is out of date or not; a first connection establishingunit, configured to establish a temporary connection with the first userequipment, when the information of the first user equipment is out ofdate; and a wireless transceiver unit, configured to send updateinformation to the first user equipment through the temporaryconnection.

An information transmission method is provided, which includes thefollowing steps. A second user equipment receives update informationissued by a wireless AP. The second user equipment is located in acoverage area of the wireless AP. After detecting that the second userequipment has the update information, a first user equipment establishesa connection with the second user equipment and obtains the updateinformation from the second user equipment. A wireless AP of the firstuser equipment is located outside the coverage area of the wireless AP.

A user equipment is provided, which includes a wireless transceiver unitand a message broadcast unit. The wireless transceiver unit isconfigured to receive and send a message. The message broadcast unit isconfigured to periodically generate a broadcast beacon message and sendout the broadcast beacon message via the wireless transceiver unit.

A user equipment is further provided, which includes a wirelesstransceiver unit, a detecting unit, and an information update unit. Thewireless transceiver unit is configured to receive and send a message.The detecting unit is configured to detect whether an informationidentification received by the wireless transceiver unit in a beaconmessage broadcasted by other user equipment is identical to aninformation identification of the current user equipment or not. Theinformation update unit is configured to receive update information sentby the other user equipment when the detecting unit detects that theinformation identifications are different.

An information transmission system is provided, which includes a firstuser equipment and a second user equipment. The first user equipmentincludes a first wireless transceiver unit and a message broadcast unit.The message broadcast unit is configured to periodically broadcast abeacon message. The second user equipment includes a second wirelesstransceiver unit, a detecting unit, a connection establishing unit, andan information update unit. The detecting unit is configured to detectwhether an information identification in a beacon message received bythe second wireless transceiver unit that is broadcasted by other userequipment is identical to an information identification of the seconduser equipment or not. The connection establishing unit is configured toestablish a connection with the other user equipment when the detectingunit detects that the information identifications are different. Theinformation update unit is configured to receive update information sentby the other user equipment through the connection.

An information transmission system is further provided, which includes awireless AP and a user equipment located in a coverage area of thewireless AP. The user equipment includes a wireless transceiver unit anda message broadcast unit. The wireless transceiver unit is configured toreceive and send a message. The message broadcast unit is configured toperiodically generate a broadcast beacon message and send out thebroadcast beacon message via the wireless transceiver unit.

The user equipments periodically broadcast beacon messages to eachother. Each user equipment extracts information identificationinformation from a broadcast beacon message, and compares theinformation identification information with an informationidentification thereof, so as to update information of the userequipment. Through the method of the present embodiment, the userequipment outside the coverage area of the wireless AP can obtain theupdate information issued by the wireless AP in time.

At the same time, with the present embodiment, the user equipment canupdate the information without additionally increasing the transmitpowers of the wireless AP and the user equipment, and thus theinterference to other user equipments is not increased.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating a technical solution forenabling a user equipment to obtain information in the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view illustrating another technical solution forenabling a user equipment to obtain information in the prior art;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view illustrating a method for enabling a userequipment to obtain information according to an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the principles of a user equipmentaccording to a first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the principles of a user equipmentaccording to a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the principles of a user equipmentaccording to a third embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic view of an information transmission systemaccording to a first embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 8 is a schematic view of an information transmission systemaccording to a second embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the present embodiment, all user equipments periodically broadcastbeacon messages. Each user equipment extracts information identificationinformation from a received beacon message, compares the informationidentification information with an information identification thereof,and establishes a connection with a neighboring user equipment andreceives an update message if determining that the neighboring userequipment has the update message.

The present invention is described below in further detail withreference to accompanying drawings and embodiments.

In an embodiment as shown in FIG. 3, a user equipment S1 is locatedoutside a coverage area of a wireless access point (AP) S0, and a userequipment S2 is located in the coverage area of the wireless AP S0. Aprocess for the user equipment S1 to obtain update informationspecifically includes the following steps.

In step 301, the wireless AP S0 issues update information through aninformation update broadcast, for example, broadcasts a beacon messageto user equipments within the coverage area of the wireless AP S0. Thebeacon message is a special control information frame sent throughbroadcasting, indicating that new information is issued, and contains aninformation identification, which is used to distinguish differentupdate information. The user equipment S2 establishes a connection withthe wireless AP S0 when the information identification in the beaconmessage broadcasted by the wireless access point S0 is different from aninformation identification stored in the user equipment S2. A user ofthe user equipment S2 may be reminded by voice or display to selectwhether to update the information identification stored in the userequipment S2 or not, before the user equipment S2 establishes aconnection with the wireless AP S0 if the user equipment S2 detects thatthe information identification of the beacon message broadcasted by thewireless AP S0 is different from the information identification storedtherein. If the user selects to update the information identificationstored therein, a connection is established between the user equipmentS2 and the wireless AP S0; otherwise, no connection is established.

A method for the user equipment S2 to establish a connection with thewireless AP S0 is that the user equipment S2 may obtain channelresources by applying to the wireless AP S0, thereby establishing aconnection with the wireless AP S0, and may also obtain channelresources through competition, thereby establishing a connection withthe wireless AP S0.

In step 302, the user equipment S2 receives the update informationthrough the connection with the wireless AP S0.

In step 303, the user equipment S2 broadcasts a beacon message, and theuser equipment S1 receives the beacon message broadcasted by the userequipment S2 and extracts an information identification from the beaconmessage. The information identification is compared with the latestinformation identification stored in the user equipment S1. If thecomparison result shows that the information identifications aredifferent, which means that the user equipment S2 has the updateinformation, the user equipment S1 establishes a temporary connectionwith the user equipment S2.

The period for the user equipment to broadcast a beacon message maydepend on the network size, and different periods may also be set withinand outside the coverage area of the wireless AP.

The information identification may be an identification fordistinguishing different information in an actual network, such as aninformation number and a time stamp.

If the information identification is an information number, the value ofthe information number is used to determine whether it is the updateinformation or not. The information number will be reset to zero afterreaching a maximum value.

For example, provided that the information identification of the userequipment S1 is X, and the information identification of the userequipment S2 is Y, a judgment rule is as follows.

If X<Y and |Y−X|<T, the information of the user equipment S1 needs to beupdated.

If X<Y and |Y−X|≧T, the information of the user equipment S1 does notneed to be updated.

If X≧Y and |Y−X|≦T, the information of the user equipment S1 does notneed to be updated.

If X≧Y and |Y−X|>T, the information of the user equipment S1 needs to beupdated.

T is a preset value, in order to avoid that when the update informationnumber is smaller than information numbers stored in some userequipments because the information number reaches the maximum value andis recounted, the information of these user equipments cannot beupdated. The value of T may depend on the network size, the frequency ofissuing information and the like, and may be set to, for example, ⅔, ½,or ⅓ of the maximum value of the information number.

If the information identification is a time stamp, the principles ofjudging the update information are the same as those of the informationnumber. In step 304, the user equipment S1 obtains the updateinformation from the user equipment S2 by the established temporaryconnection.

The user equipment S2 may also actively establish a connection with theuser equipment S1 and send the update message to the user equipment S1when the user equipment S2 finds that the information of the userequipment S1 is out of date through the beacon message broadcasted bythe user equipment S1.

In the information transmission method according to this embodiment ofthe present invention, all user equipments, either outside or within thecoverage area of the wireless AP, periodically broadcast beaconmessages. Each user equipment extracts information identificationinformation from a received beacon message, compares the informationidentification information with an information identification thereof,and establishes a connection with a neighboring user equipment andreceives an update message if determining that the neighboring userequipment has the update message. Therefore, the user equipment outsidethe coverage area of the wireless AP can obtain the update informationissued by the wireless AP in time without additionally increasing thetransmit powers of the wireless AP and the user equipment, and thus theinterference to other user equipments is not increased.

In the present embodiment, the user equipment includes a wirelesstransceiver unit and a message broadcast unit, and may further include adetecting unit and an information update unit.

The wireless transceiver unit is configured to receive and send data;and the message broadcast unit is adapted to broadcast a beacon messageof the user equipment. The beacon message includes an informationidentification of the user equipment. The detecting unit is configuredto extract an information identification from a beacon messagebroadcasted by other user equipment, compares the informationidentification with the information identification of the currentequipment, and notifies the information update unit to update theinformation when finding that the information needs to be updated. Theinformation update unit establishes a connection with the equipmenthaving the update information and receives the update information whenthe detecting unit finds that the information needs to be updated.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the principles of a user equipmentaccording to a first embodiment of the present invention.

In this embodiment, the user equipment 40 includes a wirelesstransceiver unit 41 and a message broadcast unit 42. The wirelesstransceiver unit 41 is configured to receive and send a message. Themessage broadcast unit 42 is configured to periodically generate abroadcast beacon message and send out the broadcast beacon message viathe wireless transceiver unit 41.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the principles of a user equipmentaccording to a second embodiment of the present invention.

Unlike the embodiment as shown in FIG. 4, in this embodiment, in orderto enable the user equipment to update the information thereof in time,an information identification storage unit 44, a detecting unit 43, aconnection establishing unit 45, and an information update unit 46 arefurther disposed in a user equipment 50. The information identificationstorage unit 44 is configured to store the information identification ofthe user equipment. The detecting unit 43 is configured to detectwhether an information identification received by the wirelesstransceiver unit 41 from update information issued by a wireless AP(when the user equipment 50 is located in a coverage area of thewireless AP) or an information identification in a beacon messagereceived by the wireless transceiver unit 41 that is broadcasted byother user equipment (when the user equipment 50 is located outside thecoverage area of the wireless AP) are identical to the informationidentification of the user equipment 50 or not. If not, the connectionestablishing unit 45 establishes a connection between the user equipment50 and the wireless AP or the other user equipment, and then theinformation update unit 46 receives the update information sent by thewireless AP or update information sent by the other user equipmentthrough the connection, thereby enabling the user equipment 50 to obtainthe update information in time.

Besides, an information identification update unit 47 and a userreminding unit 48 may also be disposed in the user equipment 50. Theinformation identification update unit 47 is configured to update theinformation identification of the current user equipment stored in theinformation identification storage unit 44 after the wirelesstransceiver unit 41 receives the update information issued by thewireless AP or the other equipment. The user reminding unit 48 isconfigured to remind a user to update the information identificationstored in the current user equipment when the detecting unit 43 detectsthat the information identification received by the wireless transceiverunit 41 from the update information issued by the wireless AP and theinformation identification received by the wireless transceiver unit ina beacon message broadcasted by other user equipment are different fromthe information identification of the current user equipment. Theflexibility of the user equipment may be further enhanced by the userreminding unit 48.

The information identification may be a code for identifyinginformation, such as an information number and a time stamp. For detailsabout a method for the detecting unit 43 to detect the informationidentifications, reference can be made to the description of theprevious embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the principles of a user equipmentaccording to a third embodiment of the present invention.

In this embodiment, a user equipment 60 includes a wireless transceiverunit 61, a detecting unit 62, and an information update unit 63. Thewireless transceiver unit 61 is configured to receive and send amessage. The detecting unit 62 is configured to detect whether aninformation identification in a beacon message received by the wirelesstransceiver unit 61 that is broadcasted by other user equipment isidentical to an information identification of the user equipment 60 ornot. If not, the information update unit 63 receives update informationsent by the other user equipment.

The information identification may be a code for identifyinginformation, such as an information number and a time stamp. For detailsabout a method for the detecting unit 62 to detect the informationidentification, reference can be made to the description of the previousembodiments of the present invention.

In this embodiment of the present invention, the user equipment can notonly receive the update information issued by the wireless AP in timewhen located in the coverage area of the wireless AP, but also know thata neighboring user equipment has an update message through a beaconmessage issued by the neighboring user equipment after moving outsidethe coverage area of the wireless AP, and then obtain the updateinformation in time by establishing a connection with the neighboringuser equipment.

FIG. 7 is a schematic view of an information transmission systemaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 7, a first user equipment 710 at least includes awireless transceiver unit 711, a detecting unit 712, and an informationupdate unit 713. A second user equipment 720 at least includes awireless transceiver unit 721 and a message broadcast unit 722.

All user equipments, either outside or within a coverage area of awireless AP, broadcast beacon messages via wireless transceiver unitsthereof. The beacon messages include information identificationinformation of the equipments. For example, the wireless transceiverunit 711 of the first user equipment 710 receives a beacon messagebroadcasted by the message broadcast unit 722 of the second userequipment. The detecting unit 712 of the first user equipment 710compares the information identification and finds that the informationof the first user equipment 710 needs to be updated. The detecting unit712 of the first user equipment 710 notifies the information update unit713 to carry out update the information. The first user equipment 710establishes a connection with the second user equipment 720. Theinformation update unit 713 updates the information according toinformation received by the first user equipment 710 from the seconduser equipment 720.

In the present invention, the information update between the userequipment and the wireless AP as well as the other user equipment may beautomatically implemented under a configuration (for example, theinformation update is automatically implemented under a defaultconfiguration without any operation by the user). The user may also bereminded to determine whether to perform the update or not (for example,the user is reminded by sound/image to determine whether to perform theupdate).

FIG. 8 is a schematic view of an information transmission systemaccording to another embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 8, the system includes a wireless AP 81 and a userequipment 82 located in a coverage area 80 of the wireless AP 81.

The user equipment 82 includes a wireless transceiver unit 821 and amessage broadcast unit 822. The wireless transceiver unit 821 isconfigured to receive and send a message. The message broadcast unit 822is configured to periodically generate a broadcast beacon message andsend out the broadcast beacon message via the wireless transceiver unit821.

The user equipment 82 may further include a detecting unit 823, aconnection establishing unit 824, and an information update unit 825.The detecting unit 823 is configured to detect whether an informationidentification received by the wireless transceiver unit 821 from updateinformation issued by the wireless AP is identical to an informationidentification of the user equipment 82 or not. If not, the connectionestablishing unit 824 establishes a connection with the wireless AP 81,and the information update unit 825 then receives the update informationsent by the wireless AP 81 through the connection.

With the information transmission system according to this embodiment ofthe present invention, the user equipment within the coverage area ofthe wireless AP can obtain the update information issued by the wirelessAP and then send the update information to the user equipment outsidethe coverage area of the wireless AP, so that the user equipment outsidethe coverage area of the wireless AP can also obtain the updateinformation issued by the wireless AP in time. Moreover, since thetransmit powers of the wireless AP and the user equipments do not needto be additionally increased, the interference to other user equipmentsis not increased.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variations can be made to the structure of the presentembodiment without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention.In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present embodimentcover modifications and variations of this invention provided that theyfall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. An information transmission method, comprising:receiving, by a first user equipment, update information from a wirelessaccess point (AP) when the first user equipment is located in a coveragearea of the wireless AP, the receiving comprising: receiving, by thefirst user equipment, a first beacon message broadcast by the wirelessAP, wherein the first beacon message comprises an informationidentification; establishing, by the first user equipment when theinformation identification in the first beacon message is different froman information identification stored in the first user equipment, awireless connection with the wireless AP; and receiving, by the firstuser equipment, the update information from the wireless AP through thewireless connection with the wireless AP; establishing, by the firstuser equipment, a temporary connection with a second user equipment wheninformation of the second user equipment is out of date, wherein thesecond user equipment is located outside the coverage of the wirelessAP; sending, by the first user equipment, the update information to thesecond user equipment through the temporary connection to update theinformation of the second user equipment.
 2. The method according toclaim 1, wherein when establishing the temporary connection with thesecond user equipment, the first user equipment is located in or outsideof the coverage of the wireless AP.
 3. The method according to claim 1,wherein the establishing, by the first user equipment, the temporaryconnection with the second user equipment comprises: broadcasting, bythe first user equipment, a second beacon message to the second userequipment, wherein the second beacon message comprises an informationidentification stored in the first user equipment; establishing, by thefirst user equipment, the temporary connection with the second userequipment when the information identification in the second beaconmessage is different from a latest information identification stored inthe second user equipment.
 4. The method according to claim 3, whereinthe establishing of the temporary connection is triggered by the seconduser equipment.
 5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the firstuser equipment periodically broadcast the second beacon message.
 6. Themethod according to claim 5, wherein different periods for the firstuser equipment to broadcast the second beacon message are set within andoutside the coverage area of the wireless AP.
 7. The method according toclaim 1, wherein the establishing, by the first user equipment, thetemporary connection with the second user equipment comprises:receiving, by the first user equipment, a third beacon message broadcastby the second user equipment, wherein the third beacon message comprisesan information identification stored in the second user equipment; andestablishing, by the first user equipment, the temporary connection withthe second user equipment when the information identification in thethird beacon message is different from an information identificationstored in the first user equipment.
 8. The method according to claim 1,further comprising: updating, by the first user equipment, theinformation identification stored therein-after receiving the updateinformation from the wireless AP.
 9. The method according to claim 1,the information identification is an information number or a time stamp.10. A communications system, comprising: a wireless access point (AP),configure to issues update information to user equipments in a coveragearea of the wireless AP; a first user equipment, configured to: receivethe update information from the wireless AP, when the first userequipment is located in the coverage area of the wireless AP wherein thereceive the update information comprising: receive a first beaconmessage broadcast by the wireless AP, wherein the first beacon messagecomprises an information identification; establish, when the informationidentification in the first beacon message is different from aninformation identification stored in the user equipment, a wirelessconnection with the wireless AP; receive the update information from thewireless AP through the wireless connection with the wireless AP; asecond user equipment, located outside the coverage of the wireless AP;the first user equipment is further configured to establish a temporaryconnection with the second user equipment when information of the seconduser equipment is out of date, and to send the update information to thesecond user equipment through the temporary connection to update theinformation of the second user equipment.